A Daily Diary Reflecting My Settle In Experience Using The New CS2M Footers
I thought that this thread would be a good place for me to blog my daily findings using all new CS2M footers in my system
With the help of my wife, yesterday I removed 10 sets of CS2 1.0 footers from my front end electronics and 6 sets of CS2 1.5 footers from my amplifier and its 2 se.parate power supplies
I have always advocated doing an A-B-A test to understand what the Center Stage footers bring to a system and yesterday was no exception. I have always said that the placement and removal of these footers always goes best when you have an extra set of hands especially if your equipment is heavy
I have a play list of about 30 songs that I use to highlight aspects of things I look for in the music starting from simple vocals and moving on through more complex pieces until finally large symphonics.
I played many of the songs and once done I powered the system down and removed 64 footers from under my components.My wife is skilled at the process as this is at least the 8th or 9th time that I have done this experiment. The system was then powered up and I listened once again with stock feet of all components. What I heard made me smile as the effect of a system completely supported with CS footers became immediately evident when listening now. The sound stage was side to side reaching the speakers but in comparison to what I just heard the sound now could only best be described as 2 dimensional there was a complete collapse of everything in the soundstage. The immersive effect I had before was gone. Tonality was ok but nowhere near what I had before. My system sounded subdued. The dynamic, timbre and tonality I had with the footers was gone
We were able to insert the 64 new CS2M footers under all components in about 45 minutes and then the system was powered up and allowed to warm up and I sat down to listen
I played the same songs over again . I can say out of the box it was initially sounding like a completely different system and while I was trying to wrap my head around what I was hearing the bottom literally fell out and my system never sounded so bad.
Yesterday I was saying to bobbin that these footers bring tonality, dynamics and a visceral emotion. This was totally gone. The top end was rolled off and the bottom octave was gone. The bass was loose, tubby and slow. It seemed as if the system was having difficulty keeping up.
So within the first half hour this is how I could describe what II was hearing
System seemed sluggish, slow and having difficulty keeping up
Loose tubby bass
Rolled off top end
Absence of bottom octave ..bass was woefully bad
Sound stage seems two dimensional compared to before
Listening to male singers with low deep voices revealed a rattling in their voices
Steve Nix Voice was unrecognizable
Leonard Cohen's voice was unlistenable and was rattled and garbled
Playing passages with female singers at the listening levels that I always used seemed so loud that I felt as if my ears were bleeding
At this point I had to leave the room. I did keep the music playing and returned 90 minutes later
I have said since the CS2 was released that my settle in period seems to be quicker than other users and the only plausible (but unsubstantiated) reason could be that all of my CS feet are sitting on Joe's CMS platforms. So what heard this time caught me completely by surprise.........
At 2 hours in a great deal of the dynamics had returned
The mid range was now not only listenable but the garbled male and female voices was gone. Stevie Nix and Leonard Cohen were now sounding right
What also impressed me was the mid bass was now much tighter and very listenable even though the bottom octave was still absent
Dynamics were back in a very good way
Initially the 2D soundstage was restricted to a narrow space between the speakers. There was no extension of the soundstage laterally when I first began to listen but at 2 hours the sound stage was now reaching both inner sides of the speakers
There was still no immersive effect at all
My other caveat was when I inserted the LS 1.5's under my speakers, the settle in process was 3-7 days and I attributed this to a different technology than what was in the CS2. Well FWIW, the CS2M is based on trickle down technology from the LS series and I can only speculate that the reason I was beginning to hear sonic changes after 2 hours was perhaps due to the LS DNA in these CS2M feet. However that is conjecture on my part
So I sat for there next 2 hours and listened and I could hear changes happening as I played my demo tracks. That shocked me
So what does this prove......well again it shows that settle in with these feet are the same as with the CS2 feet .....IOW settle in is truly system dependent. I have clients whose feet settle in 7-10 days and others at least a month a longer
The key to Center Stage feet is the degradation process. If you hear degradation, it means these feet are working and DON'T TOUCH THEM because if you do you start all over. Leave them alone. Once the degradation starts the settling has begun and in a few days everyone will begin to experience their own epiphany as one day it will see as if the clouds have parted and suddenly you are listening to a new system
My initial impression so far is that these feet do have different DNA as they sound different somewhat from the CS2. However before I make any comments more listening is due today. My system is warming up as I type my day One findings. Please be advised that my settle might be entirely different from every one. These are system dependent so "be patient little grasshopper.
Stay tuned for today's findings.
